The Audacity of Despair
Collected prose, links and occasional venting from David Simon
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- Posts
- 171 from 1 Nov 1992 to 7 Jul 2026
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- now and then (1 in the last year)
- Kind
- personal blog
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2026 1
2025 1
2023 2
2022 2
2020 1
2019 1
2018 9
2017 3
2016 4
2015 17
- Ain’t no justice. It’s just us.
- Old faces and fresh dishonor
- The frauds of memory, the limits of penitence. And baseball.
- Allen Toussaint (1938-2015)
- Grievous assimilation on the streets of New York
- Some brief correspondence regarding the Chicago Cubs
- Probably smarter, possibly funnier.
- A good day to be an American
- Father’s Day Redux: Pickles & Cream
- Mr. O’Malley’s Bad Math
- Not wrong. Not at all.
- Zero tolerance is exactly what it sounds like:
- A Maryland Film Festival panel slated
- Baltimore
- Ladies and gentlemen, The Intrinsics: A parental kvell
- Reprinted without permission
- Kirby Delauter is a putz
2014 18
- Ted Lippman (1929-2014)
- American torture
- The Wire in HD (updated with video clips)
- The Wire in HD
- Comeback Clip
- The Wire and Baltimore
- The endgame for American civic responsibility Pt. III
- The endgame for American civic responsibility Pt. II
- The endgame for American civic responsibility. Pt. I
- Robin Williams: A brief encounter
- A quantum of Oriole
- The nationalist veil
- Within the Acela cocoon
- Libel per se – UPDATED TWICE
- It’s carnival time
- Bill Moyers, for a second bite of the apple.
- Pete Seeger, 1919-2014
- “The highway’s jammed with broken heroes…”
2013 37
- Treme sign-off in the New Orleans Times-Picayune
- The Pogues project – clarified
- Shooting Michael B. Jordan
- And now my emphasis added. (Emphasis mine.)
- Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2013: Some People are More Equal than Others
- Caption contest, though I believe Mrs. Simon has already won.
- A rugged individualist punches into the Disney compound.
- Kick it over.
- Lost in a symptom: The Nation on marijuana reform
- Slavery, a film narrative and the empty myth of original intent.
- Elmore Leonard (1925-2013)
- Liner notes essay – Steve Earle’s new boxed set
- Betrayal, thy name is Bourdain.
- The Koch brothers and The Baltimore Sun
- Doubling down
- Comments on Martin-Zimmerman. To reiterate:
- More proof that twitter sucks. (Updated)
- Trayvon: Calling it
- Trayvon
- The banality of ideology
- Chickens, coming home.
- Fear the Bird: The Sports Illustrated reprise.
- A good argument demands some rigor.
- The “Nigger Wake-Up Call”
- Now. And this. And, if true, the time and place to draw the line. (But not true: UPDATE)
- To and Fro. And Real Respect To Mr. Shirky For Checking In, Regardless.
- The Guardian: I Am Straw Man, Reborn
- Counter-Arguments: Gathered and Answered
- NSA and FISA commentary: Calling it.
- We are shocked, shocked…
- James Agee, and the delicate pursuit of narrative non-fiction.
- A family history as microcosm and our national divide.
- Why I don’t tweet. Example #47
- “Do You Know Who I Am?”
- Dead children and monied politicians.
- Gus Triandos (1930-2013)
- Robert Chew, December 28, 1960 – January 17, 2013
2012 46
- Addendum: The National Review and the deaths of schoolchildren
- Newtown, Conn.
- Entitlement and celebrity, and the work itself
- A brutal reprise in Florida
- Fuss, bother, and then…quiet
- Petraeus, On Further Reflection (R.I.P. John O’Neill)
- Stray penises and politicos
- Barack Obama And The Death Of Normal
- Orioles
- Orioles on the SI cover
- Union, union, union
- Omits and Edits
- Orioles
- You did it, Mr. Bernstein. Now own it.
- Mitt Romney paid taxes at a rate of 13 percent and he’s proud to say so. Redux.
- Fourth and long. Delegate Burns needs to punt.
- Mitt Romney paid taxes at a rate of at least 13 percent. And he’s proud to say so.
- DeAndre McCullough (1977-2012)
- Random notes from a summer vacation
- Pickles and Cream
- Mr. Bealefeld’s Come-To-Jesus Moment
- In Memoriam
- A Fight To The Last Mexican
- Busted: Confessing to Crimes of Fashion
- Dirt Under The Rug
- Kwame Brown: Another federal case, another Head Shot.
- Columbia Journalism Review: Free For All
- Wire! The musical…
- Graduation Remarks, Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School
- End of Treme 3 filming
- Commencement Address, Georgetown University
- The Great Chuck Brown Has Passed
- Sweetheart, Get Me Rewrite
- Jazz Fest 2012, Final Day
- Mariano Rivera
- Notes from Jazz Fest in New Orleans, 2012
- No man is a hero to his 17-year-old son
- HBO’s TREME vs. THE WIRE Battle of the Bands at Tipitina’s
- Introduction
- Oh, Baltimore…
- Levon Helm
- The Awards Culture Revisited
- I meant this, not that. But yeah, I meant it.
- Welcome to Florida. Beware of gunmen standing their ground
- “Homicide” cop battling life on the streets once again
- David Simon — The Wire Interview Winterguest VPRO
2011 3
2010 3
2009 7
2008 9
- Two Americas: A primer for Europeans
- Green sheet: Terry McLarney rates the intern
- Justifiable
- The Wire’s Final Season and the Story Everyone Missed
- From Time Magazine: End The Drug War
- A Final Thank You To Those Who Watched
- A Newspaper Can’t Love You Back
- Down To the Wire
- Does the News Matter To Anyone Anymore?